Miranda Lambert Joins Brent Cobb Live Onstage in Nashville

It was the main song idea Brent Cobb he had stuck in his head going into a co-writing session with the Cadillac Three’s Neil Mason. Listing all the simple country stuff they love — Redman tobacco, grandpa’s two cents, singing hymns, skippin’ stones — they finished the track and called it “Old Sh!t.”

“I said, ‘I know it’s weird, but it’s just some of that old shit, man,’” Cobb recalled live onstage during his show with Adam Hood at Nashville’s Basement East on Thursday night (Dec. 15). “It’s just that old shit that I grew up doing. My granddaddy raised hogs and we had chickens. We didn’t know who would do it. but low and behold but low and behold, one of the greatest people I’ve ever met did.”

That’s when he welcomed to the stage surprise guests Miranda Lambert with tunesmith Mando Saenz on harmonica to sing the song. Holding a can of Coors and dressed down in a toboggan, an Otis Redding Revue sweatshirt and jeans, Lambert backed Cobb on harmony vocals while Saenz blew on his harp.

The night included live selections from Cobb’s latest album Shine On Rainy Day and a 45-minute performance by Hood, whose set was heavy on his 2011 album The Shape of Things. Both songwriters co-wrote “Go ‘Ol Days” with Lambert on her latest two-disc album The Weight of These Wings. Saenz co-wrote “Bad Boy” on album two, The Heart.

Their friendships goes way back. Cobb and Lambert co-wrote “Sweet By and By” for 2016’s Southern Family compilation and she was a key facilitator in getting Hood signed to his first publishing deal with Carnival Music in Nashville.

In 2007, Lambert was introduced to Hood’s music while passing through New Braunfels, Texas, with her mother Bev when their car broke down. While waiting for a hotel vacancy, the pair ended up at Tavern on the Gruene, where Hood was plugging his album Different Groove on Ray Wylie Hubbard’s KNBT radio show. Since then, Hood has released 2011’s The Shape of Things and 2014’s Welcome to the Big World. He is now signed with Dave Cobb’s Low Country Sound and Warner/Chappell Nashville.

Throughout the night, Lambert was spotted being a loyal fan singing along to every song in the venue’s VIP section with a group of friends and her boyfriend Anderson East.

Kentucky songwriter Tyler Childers kicked off the show with an acoustic mix of originals, Pink Floyd’s “Time” from Dark Side of the Moon and Willie Nelson’s “Time of the Preacher” from Red Headed Stranger.